2012 APBRmetric rankings at basketball-reference.com

[LooseCannon]

EDIT: Forgot to add a link.

More for fun than hardcore, serious analysis, Neil Paine at basketball-reference.com ran some numbers through a basic projection system (that makes adjustments for aging) to predict players for next season.

Here is how players who played for Boston in 2010-2011 ranked out of the 593 players with at least one game since 2008-2009.

Overall rankings:
Paul Pierce 12th
Kevin Garnett 14th (tied with Nene)
Ray Allen 34th
Rajon Rondo 43rd
Shaquille O'Neal 55th
Troy Murphy 91st
Jermaine O'Neal 132nd
Delonte West 230th
Jeff Green 257th
Kendrick Perkins 274th
Glen Davis 285th
Nenad Krstic 289th
Chris Johnson 343rd
Marquis Daniels 348th
Nate Robinson 352rd
Semih Erden 380th
Von Wafer 411th
Carlos Arroyo 487th
Luke Harangody 491st
Avery Bradley 584th
Sasha Pavlovic 591st (tied with Quinton Ross for next to last, above Josh Powell)





Positional breakdowns (numbers may differ from overall rankings because they were reranked within their position and only players from last season were ranked)

Out of 91 point guards (top three were Chris Paul, Derrick Rose, and Steve Nash)
Rajon Rondo 8th
Nate Robinson 46th
Carlos Arroyo 73rd

Out of 88 shooting guards (top three were Wade, Bryant, and Ginobili)
Ray Allen 5th
Delonte West 27th
Marquis Daniels 46th
Von Wafer 53rd
Avery Bradley 88th

Out of 93 small forwards (top three James, Durant, Pierce)
Paul Pierce 3rd
Luke Haragody 67th
Sasha Pavlovic 92nd

Out of 87 power forwards (top three Gasol, Nowitzki, Bosh)
Kevin Garnett 5th (tied with Lamarcus Aldridge, Zach Randolph, and Kevin Love)
Troy Murphy 27th
Jeff Green 58th
Glen Davis 60th

Out of 93 centers (top three Howard, Duncan, Nene)
Shaquille O'Neal 13th
Jermaine O'Neal 26th
Kendrick Perkins 38th
Nenad Krstic 45th
Chris Johnson 57th
Semih Erden 61st

[Roy H.]

I like that Yao is ranked 22nd.  There might be a flaw in the projections system.

[Fafnir]

I like that Yao is ranked 22nd.  There might be a flaw in the projections system.

I think its based on similarity scores, it doesn't have manual input based on real life injury history.

A player like Roy who's decline can be seen in box scores gets dinged, but Yao has just missed time. When he's been on the floor he's still produced at a high level.

[LooseCannon]

I like that Yao is ranked 22nd.  There might be a flaw in the projections system.

It's basically a weighted sum of the past three seasons with a numerical adjustment for age.  The point was to come up with a quick and dirty projection system so that you can easily produce some numbers for fun and games.

As Fafnir notes, it doesn't take into account injuries.  If I understand it correctly, it should penalize players who have played poorly due to an injury which they are expected to recover from fully.  It also primarily uses rate-based stats and overrates players who are limited in playing time due to age/injury/etc.

[Spilling Green Dye]

My conclusions from this ranking are the following:

-Brining back Delonte is very important, both as a backup SG & PG.

-We need to expect more from Jeff Green.  We need a great deal of help at the backup SF & PF spots, and he can fill this role well if he improves within our system.

-Glen Davis is not worth bringing back.  We need to look elsewhere.

-Troy Murphy might have some value if he gets in shape and in-sync with our system this off-season.  I wouldn't mind seeing him back.

-We'll miss Shaq next year nearly as much as we missed him the 2nd half of this past year   

[diconzo]

My conclusions from this ranking are the following:

-Brining back Delonte is very important, both as a backup SG & PG.

-We need to expect more from Jeff Green.  We need a great deal of help at the backup SF & PF spots, and he can fill this role well if he improves within our system.

-Glen Davis is not worth bringing back.  We need to look elsewhere.

-Troy Murphy might have some value if he gets in shape and in-sync with our system this off-season.  I wouldn't mind seeing him back.

-We'll miss Shaq next year nearly as much as we missed him the 2nd half of this past year   

I would bring big baby back on a two year 6 million dollar deal. With the 2nd year being a player option. He is going to get hit pretty hard in the FA market so he might get rid of his "I deserve to start" mumbo jumbo. Then even if he takes the 2nd year we can give him a contract when we see what kind of cap space we will have.

[LooseCannon]

I don't want this to turn into yet another Big Baby thread, but opinion seems to be split on him.  Mainstream media, like the talking heads you see on ESPN, see Glen Davis as one of the better bigs available.  Stat-based, advanced metrics analysts seem to think he's pretty horrible.

[PosImpos]

I don't want this to turn into yet another Big Baby thread, but opinion seems to be split on him.  Mainstream media, like the talking heads you see on ESPN, see Glen Davis as one of the better bigs available.  Stat-based, advanced metrics analysts seem to think he's pretty horrible.

Well, partly he's overrated -- he scores a fair amount for a reserve big, but he doesn't do so efficiently, and he's also a poor rebounder.

On the other hand, many of the good things he brings to the table are hard to quantify (picks, charges, floor spacing, works well within team defense).


It's interesting that Pierce is considered far and away our best player.

[LooseCannon]

It's interesting that Pierce is considered far and away our best player.

Considered so by who?

In the four measures used in the analysis, Pierce was better than Garnett in two out of four.  KG came out third overall (behind Dirk and Lebron) in the league in RAPM (a form of adujusted plus/minus). 

One of the things these stats suggest is that the people who think that KG is no longer worth anywhere near his salary and is only valuable to the Celtics as an expiring contract are completely wrong.

[Fafnir]

I don't want this to turn into yet another Big Baby thread, but opinion seems to be split on him.  Mainstream media, like the talking heads you see on ESPN, see Glen Davis as one of the better bigs available.  Stat-based, advanced metrics analysts seem to think he's pretty horrible.

Well, partly he's overrated -- he scores a fair amount for a reserve big, but he doesn't do so efficiently, and he's also a poor rebounder.

On the other hand, many of the good things he brings to the table are hard to quantify (picks, charges, floor spacing, works well within team defense).


It's interesting that Pierce is considered far and away our best player.

Davis isn't that great of a pick setter, he doesn't really space the floor as teams scheme to leave him, and his defense is versatile but unless KG is paired with him just plain bad.

[PosImpos]

I don't want this to turn into yet another Big Baby thread, but opinion seems to be split on him.  Mainstream media, like the talking heads you see on ESPN, see Glen Davis as one of the better bigs available.  Stat-based, advanced metrics analysts seem to think he's pretty horrible.

Well, partly he's overrated -- he scores a fair amount for a reserve big, but he doesn't do so efficiently, and he's also a poor rebounder.

On the other hand, many of the good things he brings to the table are hard to quantify (picks, charges, floor spacing, works well within team defense).


It's interesting that Pierce is considered far and away our best player.

Davis isn't that great of a pick setter, he doesn't really space the floor as teams scheme to leave him, and his defense is versatile but unless KG is paired with him just plain bad.

Yeah.  I was doing my best to come up with positives for him.  Honestly, he's just really overrated.

It's interesting that Pierce is considered far and away our best player.

Considered so by who?

In the four measures used in the analysis, Pierce was better than Garnett in two out of four.  KG came out third overall (behind Dirk and Lebron) in the league in RAPM (a form of adujusted plus/minus). 

One of the things these stats suggest is that the people who think that KG is no longer worth anywhere near his salary and is only valuable to the Celtics as an expiring contract are completely wrong.

By "considered" I meant by the overall player rankings.

I disagree that KG is still worth $15-20 million dollars a year, but he's obviously still a very valuable player.

[Vermont Green]

Cool numbers to consider.  I found it interesting that Rondo was the 8th best PG, just ahead of Andre Miller and Jameer Nelson but behind Paul, Rose, Williams, Nash, Westbrook, Billups, and Parker.  I am surprised that didn't spur some spirited debate.

Also, Jeff Green rated above Perk but in the same range and no debate on that?

The surprise that caught my eye was that Troy Murphy scored above Roy Hibbert.  I wonder if Indiana would do that trade (and yes, I know it is not really possible to trade those two directly based on contract status and old CBA rules).  Hard to believe that Murphy will be a top 100 player in the league next year but if he does come back and play that way, I hope he does it for the Celtics.

[Marcus13]

Troy Murphy smashin Jeff Green in the rankings - LOL

[LooseCannon]

Some of those metrics may overvalue rebounding and Murphy still had a good rebounding rate last season.